Every now and then I cannot resist the urge to speculate wildly
about the nature of the system we live in. Here’s the latest
attempt:

Thesis: If A) communication, technology, information and
human cognition have and are still evolving inter-dependently, and
B) a major goal of their co-evolution is an increase in human
topsight ability, then C) we are about to undergo a fundamental
change in the way we cognitively relate to the world, one that
allows us to get establish “topsight” over various systems much
more quickly.

My hunch is that as we drive accelerating change in
communication, technology and information, those very structures
are exerting serious reciprocal force on both the genetic evolution
of our brains and the evolution of the memes (or software) that we
use to build our ideas of the world. Seeing as though no one
component can exist or evolve without support from the others, it
seems logical to assume they will continue to co-evolve until
something truly dramatic occurs.

Theory: Topsight is fundamental to human evolution and is
catalyzed by inter-related progress in communication, technology,
information and human cognition.

In addition to innovations that catalyzed resource-related
efficiencies (Hard Tech: stick, shovel, hydraulics, tractor,
assembly line), the evolution of human society was made possible by
technological advances that allowed people to communicate more
effectively (Soft Tech: words, symbols, writing, printing press,
telegraph, telephone, radio, television, internet), which in turn
permitted humans to better pool, shape and apply knowledge. These
hard technologies and soft technologies arose auto-catalytically in
a chicken-or-the-egg dynamic. Ongoing breakthroughs in hard
technology were made possible by better human communication and new
ideas. Likewise, breakthroughs in communication technologies were
made possible advances in the hard sciences.

In other words, the growth of technology, communication and
information has been interdependent, stretching way back to the
beginning of human civilization, and probably human evolution.
(cont.)

But there’s also a fourth component to this evolution: human
cognition. As tech, comm and info grew steadily, so did the human
ability to process external information and sensory input into
actionable knowledge. It’s likely that this occurred both due to 1)
Hardware Upgrades: the genetic evolution of the brain,
frontal lobe and
executive
system (responsible for “processes such as planning, cognitive
flexibility, abstract thinking, rule acquisition, initiating
appropriate actions and inhibiting inappropriate actions, and
selecting relevant sensory information”), and 2) Software
Upgrades: ongoing memetic or concept
evolution that resulted in new more or less easily download-able
information packets or abstractions (causality, morality, gravity,
math, economics, evolution) that made it easier to understand the
complex system around us.

It is my contention that both the genetic and memetic components
of cognition evolved, and still do evolve, auto-catalytically with
tech, comm and info. Furthermore, I’d argue that tying them all
together is a perceptual ability that David Gelertner
has coined “topsight”, which is the cognitive capacity (enabled and
enhanced by access to information, technology and powerful memes,
I’d argue) to more quickly comprehend both the system as a whole or
complex slices of the system.

A quick look around reveals abundant circumstantial evidence for
such an evolutionary topsight drive. The existence of maps,
encyclopedias, theories that explain system dynamics, 3D system
models, etc all seem to confirm the human topsight tendency. They
also enforce the notion that human topsight depends largely on
external components consisting of information and technology, made
possible and accessible by communication. Thus it is clear that
while topsight requires humans, it is not exclusively a human
phenomenon – unless we broaden the definition of humanity to
include comm, tech, info (and probably also some other
environmental elements) – but an underlying evolutionary tendency,
which makes sense as something to strive for if we believe that the
tendency of life systems is to better their ability to survive an
to thrive, in which case better and better topsight is essential
and should be sought after.

Consequences: Accelerating change in communication,
technology, information and intelligence will steadily result in
better and better topsight.

Cognitive philosopher James Flynn largely
attributes steady gains in human
IQ over the past 100 years to environmental factors that
increase our ability to think abstractly. He believes that
memeplexes like science and categorization/classification have
resulted in better on-the-fly problem solving capabilities because
they permit humans to apply knowledge across different situations.
As far as topsight is concerned, Flynn asserts that, “If technology
gives one an overview of a system (say the brain) so that one can
absorb it as a unit rather than piecemeal, that will be a great
step forward in many areas of science.”

While Flynn stops short of correlating technology growth with
rising IQ scores, the evolutionary trajectory of topsight and its
inter-dependence with comm, tech, info and cognition indicates that
the two have been linked up until now, though it is possible that
they may diverge if another suitable form of cognition (namely AI)
is created.

In either case, if achieving topsight is a fundamental
underlying goal of evolution, facilitated by growth in comm, tech,
info and cognition, then we humans should expect a near-term
topsight boom that transforms the way we think. It seems likely
that such a boom would last at least until General AI is achieved,
human brainpower maxes out, humans choose decadence over
acceleration (as Flynn speculates is possible), or Earth
experiences a mass extinction event. Barring such occurrences, or
some off-the-wall scenarios (like worldwide YGBM, thought-viruses, other attention-grabbing
concerns) we can expect our thinking ability to evolve by leaps and
bounds.

To me it appears that a new topsight shift is already underway,
is being catalyzed by the following laundry list of emerging
technologies and structures made possible by convergent
accelerating change:

Games: Serious Games is a booming field. The military has
discovered that games are useful for training troops for both
combat
and
social interaction. “Game-based schools”:
http://memebox.com/futureblogger/show/125 are about to become a
reality. Distance education is booming thanks to increasing
connectivity and new virtual learning platforms. While games are
not the exclusive answer to better eduction, they do seem to be a
learning accelerator that can help to transmit complex concepts and
behavior in a shorter span of time.

Virtual & Mirror Worlds: New virtual worlds are
springing up left and right, enabling richer distance
communication, improved transmission of certain and interaction
with complex ideas (graphical data, business structures, crowd
dynamics), and new modes of control over physical technologies like
server farms. Virtual worlds have the potential to amplify our
imaginations, increase our operational efficiency and to change the
way we see certain social and environmental structures. A subset of
virtual worlds, mirror worlds like Google Earth are quite literally
boosting our systems topsight.

Google Search: As computing speeds increase, Google’s
database of information gets better at returning more meaningful
search results in a shorter amount of time. The company’s Director
of Research, Peter Norvig, has
speculated that a few years form now it may even feel like we’re
having a conversation with the search engine. If Google is an
extension of our brain(s), as I’ve heard many people say, then it
follows that its growth will affect the speed and manner of our
thinking.

It’s interesting to note that researchers have
discovered striking similarities between the way that Google
facilitates search based on page-rank and the way that our brains
retrieve results from our memories.

Social Search: Not only are Google’s crawlers and
algorithms facilitating the quicker location of information, social
media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, and MemeBox are tapping the wisdom
of the crowds to structure bodies of information, making them more
accessible and searchable. Many web experts speculate that what’s
emerging is a
social graph that maps everyone and their relationships, which
resonates nicely with the concept of topsight.

Semantic Web: New technologies being developed by
semantic web companies like Twine, Metaweb and Adaptive Blue that have already
or are due to hit the market this year will allow users to very
easily or even automatically generate webs of meaningful
associations between web-based content. In addition to faster
Google search and the rise of social search, semantic search will
accelerate time-to-information and gradually reveal human meaning
structures that may well correlate nicely with memes and
memeplexes.

Brain Computer Interfaces: Interfaces that connect
the brain directly to software that can interpret its signals
will first serve to broaden our outgoing communication pipeline,
then, in all likelihood, help accomplish the same for inbound
information and memes. In addition to haptics, universal language
translation, and touch/3D interfaces, such devices will serve to
free up brain space for topsight.

And so forth.

Conclusion: The preceding list and my suspicions about
the inter-related nature of communication, technology, information
and cognition represent circumstantial evidence for the theory that
topsight is a human and broader evolutionary tendency. In my mind,
it all adds up to a convincing argument that topsight is a product
of both biological and technological forces. New research will
undoubtedly reveal the truth of the matter. Perhaps a
neuro-scientist will isolate memes and present a model of the
forces that affect and spread them. Perhaps an evolutionary
psychologist/anthropologist will demonstrate a convincing
statistical link between the evolution of the frontal lobe and the
incidence innovations. Perhaps a biologist will show us that genes
that code for topsight have been selected for throughout Earth’s
history. Or perhaps we’ll discover that topsight was a temporary
evolutionary fad that has just about run its course.

However it turns out, it sure is an interesting puzzle to take a
crack at.